


Office Job

by theStarfly



Series: Fantastic Fanatic [5]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Captivity, Extended Scene, Gen, Movie 1: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them Spoilers, POV Gellert Grindelwald, POV Percival Graves, Starvation, questionable morality
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-16 05:09:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10564269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theStarfly/pseuds/theStarfly
Summary: Gellert begins to question how Graves managed to not be bored in his own office.  But why wonder when he can ask the man himself?





	

 

Though he had known when he set the plans in motion to take over as the (*director of magical security) for MACUSA that he would effectively be relegating himself to a desk job, Grindelwald hadn’t quite fully prepared himself for the tedium such a job would entail.

  
He sat in Percival Graves’s spacious private office, windowless for security with not even a pane in the door to watch the comings and goings of the brainwashed worker-bees* (not that there were too many wandering the halls on this security level) and filled out paperwork. All day long, day in and day out. Permits that had to be checked by hand when it turned out documents had been falsified, background checks that had to be flagged for further research, signing off on various pet projects and laws that he almost wished he could be a part of simply to remove himself from this (*tedium) of even more paperwork.

  
And even worse than the endless pile of signatures was when he finished early, Merlin forbid, and had nothing but to stare blankly at the wall and hope beyond hope that he might be needed at some board meeting where he could at the very least drop vague references to his actual identity and smirk when they went over the heads o each and every auror present. Best of the best in security, his bollocks. Heads full of mashed peas, all of them.

 

It was on one of the days he was considering finding religion if only to escape the hell of stacks of signed forms and dispatched memoranda that he stood and began to truly examine Percival Graves’s office. The man had gadgets the likes of which Grindelwald had only seen in textbooks, and some he hadn’t the foggiest idea of how to even begin to assume the purpose. Each was placed just so in the towering glass cabinets, spaced to present a clear order while allowing room for new additions. How curious.

  
Checking the time and seeing he had more than enough until the next interrogation at quarter past, he strode (past*) a particularly fascinating globe to stop at the end of his predecessor’s frankly overlarge desk. He supposed it had a commanding presence in the oppressive light of the room, but was it necessary with the presence of personality he brought with it? Certainly not.

  
Pressing his thumb to the latch of the box he kept hidden in plain sight, he spoke the opening phrase with determination, and lifted the lid to peer down at his captive. Why should he wait to satisfy the itch of curiosity when he could simply ask?

  
With one hand inside the box, he waited for the slight sift and pop as he was brought to the inner sanctuary, a self-possessed grin on his face all the while. Above, in the office he had yet to truly call his own, the box clapped shut with a click, leaving the room in (*oppressive) silence once more.

 

The real Percival Graves was at the very least well-accommodated, if underfed, and Grindelwald was rather insulted by the vehemence of the glare and furious, if quiet, cursing directed his way upon entrance to the room in which the director was being kept.

  
“Now, now, Percy,” he pouted, his lips a perfect copy of the Director’s moue of displeasure. “I could have held you in stasis, erased your memory so you had no clue who you were, let alone where you had been taken from, but I respect you enough to give you a place to stay, and (*cushy) accommodations to keep you entertained. And this disrespect is the thanks I get?”

  
Percival glared harder from where he leaned heavily on his elbows, sitting up in the undeniably comfortable bed, face gaunt and pale with the strain of keeping himself upright.

  
“Fuck…you,” he managed between heavy breaths, before allowing himself to hang his head between his shoulders to relieve some of the strain.

  
The man had stopped asking for food weeks ago, wouldn’t give Grindelwald the satisfaction of being begged for it, and Grindelwald respected that, but the lack of respect for his own brilliant scheme? Less so. But he did have the man at his mercy. He liked to think that were the man able to think properly, were he fully nourished and on more or less the same side, he would be impressed by the sheer genius of uniting the wizarding world against the close-mindedness of the current president using her crusade against innocents, and swooping in to use that newly united front to wipe out the lesser humans who kept them in hiding was brilliant in its misleading simplicity, but he digressed. After all, the man was delirious.

  
“Tsk, tsk, Mr. Graves. Is that any way to speak to the man who came all this way for a bit of conversation and a spot of tea?” Grindelwald openly let a smirk cross the face he wore at the man’s full-body flinch, knowing the director wouldn’t allow himself the show of weakness of looking up at the mention of tea. Good; the director was learning that Grindelwald would provide. After all, tea was not tea without biscuits and sandwiches, nice and bland for a starving man.

  
He busied himself with the tray he had intentionally left outside the door. The direct or had to learn not to take his hospitality for granted, and the jolt each time he was surprised with the offer of food was a delicious treat of itself.

  
Food must be earned with conversation, after all. But Grindelwald was nothing if not the most charming of conceivable conversational partners.  
He placed the tea, biscuits, and sandwiches just out of reach of the director, not that the man had yet looked up, and settled into the bedside chair. What a rude man.

  
“So, Director Graves. About that outstanding collection you have in your office.”

**Author's Note:**

> Probably a two-part work. The second part is planned to be in Graves's POV.
> 
> Not my best piece of writing, but I have been stuck in a bit of a rut, so putting any work out there at all helps. Tap the kudos if you even vaguely like it; comment if you love it or hate it so I know how I'm doing! Comments are cookies, and cookies cause motivational-sugar-rushes, which create more work. They're awesome like that.
> 
> Currently cooking up a surprise for you subscribers... (hint: it's been a long time and a change in seasons coming)


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